Four Blind Eyes
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, day six hundred and twelve: Artie couldn't believe he hadn't taken notice before, of what was going on with Brittany and Santana.


_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 29th cycle. Now cycle 30!_

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><p><strong>Hear that little bird twitter!<strong> _Been thinking about doing this for a couple days, then this morning decided to just go for it. If you go there, find 'gleekathon' and there I'll be. There's also a video explaining everything... Yep... ;) Check it out!_

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><p><strong>"Four Blind Eyes"<br>Artie, Artie/Brittany + Santana **

It was almost deranged to say, but it wasn't the act itself that felt worse. It was the fact that it had taken all this time for him to figure it was happening.

Before the idea that she, Brittany S. Pierce, could ever be his girlfriend or even his friend, he'd been like any other teenage boy at that school that was vaguely aware of and highly intrigued by whatever was going on behind closed doors with those girls in the short red flippy skirts, tight ponytails… two of them in particular. There was glued at the hip, and then somewhere far up above, there was Brittany and how close she and Santana were. What were they supposed to do except to wonder, right?

Then they'd all ended up in Glee Club together, and it only got more obvious, up to the point where Brittany flat out said it, as five or six of them were conferencing about the Puck and Quinn secret and Rachel finding out… They'd sort of brushed it right off, but it had opened a door that wasn't ever going to get shut again.

Time had gone on, and it was one thing to wonder and to fantasize, but they were his friends now, or as close to friends as the 'loser in the wheelchair' and a couple of cheerleaders could be… Maybe they couldn't be called friends yet, but Glee had made them family, and that trumped everything else. They were family, and the fantasy had gone quiet like an old game you didn't play anymore.

After that, things had gotten even more complicated… Brittany, the same one he never dreamed in a million years would ever give him the time of day, had shown interest in him, had picked him. She had been his first. It was all so impossible, so overwhelming, he was just spinning in this world where nothing else mattered but the fact that this had happened, to him of all people. He kept on spinning, until Santana came and grabbed him by the wheel, and his spin became a tailspin… crash. Of course, it had been too good to be true, he'd just been fooled…

Now that this was happening, he felt like he'd fallen victim to some sort of sleight of hand. He'd seen the part about Brittany supposedly not caring for him, getting with him for all the wrong reasons, and he'd pulled away from her. What he should have seen was who it was that pulled him from her, and what reasons might have been behind it. He could understand girls not liking their friend's boyfriend, but the maneuver Santana had pulled didn't have any of the markings of that scenario, no… Instead, this was more of a 'hey, that's my girl, now you back off' kind of thing, with a female twist…

But he wasn't there yet, mentally, not as he came to mend things with Brittany a few weeks later, with Puck's help, and he was once again airborne in his happy Brittany place. If there were signs along the way, he didn't see any of them, and really, if he'd paid just a little more attention, it was so painfully obvious. The biggest of those had been when, with Ms. Holiday's assistance, Brittany had joined Santana in a performance of 'Landslide.' He had been sitting there, watching all of it, and he didn't see it. Maybe he did see some inklings of it, mostly as Sam had made what was now an observation almost too silly to consider, about how close their girlfriends were… But it'd mostly be the kind of thing that, in hindsight, he would see as a moment where he'd missed a perfect opportunity to wizen up.

Instead, it came later, on the heel of their Fleetwood Mac 'Rumours' assignment. He hadn't said a thing as Santana had come marching in, raving mad, waving the school paper at Brittany and talking about how she'd gone and told people things… It had awakened something in him like doubt, and memory, and all around him moments so forgettable were getting flagged, connected a string which, in his mind, once seen from above, would probably form into letters that spelled 'you idiot.'

For all he knew of her, of who she'd been before they were together, it had never occurred to him, that something might still be going on, between her and Santana. He had trusted her on it, especially after he'd been convinced twice before that she was either dishonest or unfaithful. If he dipped in that pool one more time, he didn't know that he'd actually manage to hang on to her again… he might lose her, forever, and he couldn't take that lightly.

Except now the idea was in his mind, and it wouldn't go away. He could think the world of her, but he knew the way her mind worked… at least, he knew that it didn't work like his or most people's. Santana knew it, too, and she could be using that to her advantage. He certainly wouldn't put it past her; she wouldn't even be misleading her by accident, she would know exactly what she was doing, but Brittany would have no idea. If he had to pick a word, he'd say it frightened him. The idea that it could be that easy to sway his girlfriend away, to get her divide her affections between him and someone else behind his back, and let her believe it was alright…

He didn't have a choice; he had to talk to her about it. Only just that, right there… As much as he could try to be reasonable about this, he knew himself… he knew the mistakes he'd made, in different situations, where he would just get too wrapped up in an emotion, that he would either be blinded to things right before him – like with the whole Brittany and Santana situation – or he would just get carried away, and he say something bad, not so much on purpose but in the heat of things, and he would regret it instantly… only to realize it was too late to stop it and the damage had been done.

He didn't want to lose her, but thinking about all the pieces that were falling into place now, he felt like he already had. He would look at her, and she didn't even look the same to him. All this doubt had put a screen in between them, blurring his view of her. He couldn't see her, but he wanted to, so much…

She had been the best thing that had happened to him in a long time, if ever… Because for the impossibility of her, she had surprised him. He didn't know what image he had of her before they'd gotten together, but it wasn't a picture of a whole person. He'd filled in the pieces over time, and he had gone from liking her to loving her. That feeling right there, so strong, it was all he could only ever have dreamed of, and now that there was this cloud hanging over them, again, he started to wonder and to ask himself if maybe he'd taken it all for granted, if instead of getting swept away, he should have let their foundation get stronger, so there'd be no change of something or someone coming right along and carrying her off before he could do a thing to stop it.

So he'd made up his mind. He would talk to her, and he would just have to do his best not to screw it up. He would just remind himself… he loved her, she meant so much to him, they had something good together, she wouldn't…

THE END

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><p><strong>AN: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.  
><strong>**In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are  
><strong>******always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!******


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